The Easton Area School Board, amid outspoken criticism last night, approved a $36.1 million operating budget that calls for a 7-mill increase in property taxes for the upcoming school year.

In a 6-2 vote, the board approved the tax hike -- the largest since the 1970s. Most of the 100 residents who attended the meeting opposed the spending plan, calling it excessive.

And the vote came despite a last-ditch effort by a local educational watchdog group that garnered 1,600 signatures on a petition asking the board to trim the budget.

The Advisory Committee on Education (ACE) said the tax hike is excessive and called for lower salary increases for the district's administrators, namely Superintendent William Moloney.

The budget calls for a 7.83 percent pay raise for Moloney, bringing his annual salary to about $80,000.

About 100 residents attended the meeting, forcing the board to interrupt the session and move it from its usual location at the administration building several miles away to the Easton Area High School's cafeteria.

"This budget and the pay raises in it are unconscionable," Palmer Township resident Joseph Ciffer told the board last night. "Do you have any idea what you'll be doing to us taxpayers on fixed incomes?"

Ciffer was one of about a dozen sometimes-heated residents who spoke during the meeting.

The board spent about 90 minutes defending the budget, saying the increases in it are needed to continue to improve education.

The tax hike is being blamed on lower-than-anticipated state aid, with the district figuring it will receive about $9.9 million next year, only 2 percent more than last year and far less than it hoped for, Moloney said.

For Northampton County residents of Easton, Martins Creek, and Forks and Palmer townships, the budget will increase property taxes to 93.3 mills. For a housed assessed at $10,000, the owner would pay $933 -- $70 more than last year.

For residents in Riegelsville in Bucks County, the tax would increase 14.3 mills to 193 mills under the proposed spending plan.

The $32.5 million 1989-1990 budget contained a 3-mill increase.

In addition to less state aid, the budget hike is caused by an estimated 9.1 percent increase in salaries, bringing the district's total payroll to $19.8 million.

Other expensive items include $2.1 million to repay loans for previous building projects and $1.9 million going to the Colonial Northampton Intermediate Unit 20 for special education -- a 12 percent increase over last year.

Last night was the earliest the board could adopt the budget according to state law that says directors have to hold hearings and review the budget for at least 30 days prior to ratifying it.

Going into last night's meeting the board was proposing an 8-mill tax hike. That number was trimmed to 7 mills at the last minute, but the cut did not affect the budget.

School directors Cesare Sportelli and Charles Palmieri voted against the budget while Bob Litz, James Spagnola, Barbara Miller, Lynn Tarnoff, Albert Humphrey and Marilyn Golden voted for it. Director Richard Streeter was absent from the meeting.